News Releases

EPA Provides Additional $3.5+ Million for Brownfields Cleanups in New England

(Boston, Mass. – July 15, 2013) – EPA announced grants of $3.575 million in supplemental funding for 11 New England communities in Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts and New Hampshire to carry out cleanup and redevelopment projects at contaminated Brownfields properties. The projects will help communities create jobs while protecting people’s health and the environment.

“Today we’ve made additional funding available to communities which have a proven track record in successfully cleaning up and redeveloping brownfield sites,” said Curt Spalding, regional administrator for EPA’s New England office. “EPA’s Brownfields program is a proven winner that helps boost local economies, creates local jobs and trains skilled workers, while helping to protect people and our communities. The additional funding announced today will help sustain that incredible progress.”

The supplemental funds will support an array of cleanup and redevelopment projects in the following New England locations:

Massachusetts
- City of Taunton - $300,000
- City of Worcester - $350,000

New Hampshire
- City of Nashua - $200,000
- Regional Economic Development Center of Southern New Hampshire -$325,000
- State of New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services - $350,000

The funding is through EPA’s Brownfields revolving loan fund, which specifically supplies funding for grant recipients to provide loans and sub-grants to carry out cleanup activities at brownfield sites. When these loans are repaid, the loan amount is then returned to the fund and subgranted or re-loaned to other borrowers, providing an ongoing source of capital within a community for additional cleanup of brownfield sites. The supplemental grants range in funding from about $200,000 to $400,000 with an average grant award of $300,000.

Nationally, there are an estimated 450,000 abandoned and contaminated sites in the United States. EPA’s Brownfields program targets these sites to encourage redevelopment, and help to provide the opportunity for productive community use of contaminated properties. EPA’s Brownfields investments overall have leveraged more than $20 billion in cleanup and redevelopment funding from public and private sources and on average, $17.79 is leveraged for every EPA Brownfields grant dollar spent.